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I guess my attitude toward the kind of experience you describe as wanting to avoid was that I had to prove myself to my PH before he was willing to step aside and let me sink or swim on my own.

I met my PH at the Game Coin convention in San Antonio in 1971, about six months before my booked hunting trip. He came and visited me in my home in Nashville and had a chance to look over my collection of guns and get an idea of what he could expect from me in the hunting field. Just by way of contrast, he also spent some time with a former client who lived about a mile away from me, also a lawyer, who had missed out on superior leopard and kudu trophies BECAUSE HE COULDN'T FIND THEM IN THE SCOPE.

At the time, my big game hunting experience was confined entirely to white tail deer, although I had been shooting varmints (ground hogs and crows) for years, at ranges up to 300 yards.

When I arrived in Kenya and we were driving out to our first camp site, my PH casually mentioned that we would need some camp meat. Later, he stopped the car, pointed to an animal on the right side of the car which I recognised as a kongoni (hartebeest) and said, "Why don't you bag him for supper?"

I got out on the left side of the car (of course), and at the same time my gun bearer, whom I had just met, and who could not speak a word of English, also got out, handed me my Model 70 300 H&H and brought along the shooting sticks, which I was totally unfamiliar with. We crouched down and left the car in single file with him in front until we reached what he considered an appropriate place (he may have been told how far away to let me shoot from) and set up the shooting sticks. Acting from instinct, I rested the rifle on the sticks, took careful aim and shot. The kongoni went down, and I stepped off the distance: 260 paces. Up until then, I ahd resolved not to attempt a shot further than 200 yards, but this experience raised my limit to 300 yards.

A few days later, I shot my first elephant. This time my PH was right next to me and immediately after I fired my first shot and the elephant went down, he fired, too. I was incensed and told him so. He pointed out that the sisal field which the elephants were raiding was only about 100 yards from the boundary of a National Park, and if I had wounded the elephant and it had gotten up and run off, there would have been no way to recover it. He never shot at one of my animals again, except for an oryx, which had moved a step just as I squeezed off my shot, and consequently was gut shot and threatened to get away. A lot of the time when we were stalking animals, he didn't even carry his rifle, although it was instantly available. I always carried my own rifle, and the gunbearer carried a backup rifle, ususally my .300 H&H, in case we encountered a plains game trophy worth shooting at.

To me, the value of the PH was in estimating trophy size. Having never been in Africa before, it was impossible for me to differentiate between a good set of horns and a mediocre one. When we waded into a herd of buffalo, I could not have identified a bull from a cow or a good head from a poor one in the short time I had before they spooked. He told me where to shoot, and I shot. There were about 35-50 head of buffalo in that herd, and maybe I should have been able to spot the biggest ones, but I couldn't. Following his directions, I was able to get three big ones, each one better than the one before.

We spent weeks locating my second elephant. Time after time we would walk up on a group of elephants dozing in the noontime shade, glass the ivory, and then disappointedly steal away. At one point, I was told to shoot, had the rifle in my shoulder and was about to fire, when my PH touched my arm and told me to hold my fire. He told me that the ivory was no bigger than what I already had.

I was furious and being pulled back and forth like that. It's like coitus interruptus in the game field. Afterwards, when I had my really big elephant, I was glad he had intervened.

As far as gun bearers are concerned, most of the time the stalks on plains game were conducted by him and me. By this time I had learned enough Swahili to be able to communicate the important information, like "Which one is the bull?" Having just the two of us along made the stalk much easier. Fortunately, there was hardly ever a need to follow up wounded game.

One experience characterizes my relationship to Kaoli, my gunbearer, better than anything else. We were following a rhino down hill. The tracker had lost the trail and he and the two gunbearers and the PH were spread out in front of me, looking for sign. Suddenly, on my right, the PH snapped his fingers to attract our attention. Almost instantly, I heard a snort like a steam locomotive releasing steam directly BEHIND us. As I turned, there was the rhino going full tilt toward the PH. He had circled around behind us and was charging down hill.

I threw up my .505, aimed at the shoulder, and fired. The rhino swapped ends and started back the way he had come, more quickly that I would have thought possible. I snapped off three more shots into his shoulder area, then took the rifle down to reload. As I reached into my pocket for more cartridges, suddenly a black arm with a handful of cartridges snaked around my waist. Kaoli, who was a good fifty feet away from me when the shooting started, had raced toward me to be there when I needed him. I was overwhelmed that (1) he had placed his duty to me above his own personal safety, and (2) he had enough confidence in my shooting to do so.

Kaoli, and the other gunbearer and the tracker, Kehri Bai and Sabuni, were a taciturn bunch. There was no back slapping or thumb pulling, no matter what the occasion. At most, there was an appreciative grin, but I treasured that as much or more than all the hystrionics that Hemingway and Ruark seemed to set so much store in. See http://www.frappr.com/?a=viewphoto&id=3823381&pid=6978040&myphotos=1 That's Kaoli, second from the right, next to him Kheri Bai, and in front, Sabuni.

Things proceeded to the point with my PH that when I shot my lion and my leopard he did not even get out of the hunting car. I appreciated his confidence in my ability and his trust in me to protect Kaoli, who would have been in as much jeopardy as I, if I had failed to perform.

You have to understand that my first experience was a five week safari, and there was plenty of time for my PH to size me up and I him. This kind of experience is virtually unknown today, and a PH has to err on the side of caution, not only for his own safety, but for the client's safety and that of his staff.